Saturday, May 10, 2008

Movie Guns VII

I chose the film Ronin for this weeks Movie Guns. This movie has a ton of weapons and gunfights, and some spectacular car chases. Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno star in this movie about a group of mercenaries who are to steal a briefcase by force from heavily armed guys. Gun handling skills are top notch, with very few mistakes.

The first gun that I have pictured is a Baby Eagle. I never saw this weapon fired in the film.

When the mercs are talking about weapons acquisition, Spence (played by Sean Bean) asks Sam (Robert DeNiro) what his favorite weapon is:

Sam - I actually favor the ol' 1911.

Spence - .45.....old gun.

Sam - Served my country well for a long time.

Not long after this, there is a great gunfight in an underpass where we see Sam knock down some bad guys with his 1911:

I think I would change my ammo if I had fireballs like that coming out of the muzzle. Vincent is blasing away with a stainless Beretta 92F which he uses throughout the rest of the movie:

Here it is seen in a later firefight:

He has a good hold on that Beretta and he keeps both eyes open with every shot. Of note is that Jean Reno doesn't flinch at all, and he fires the gun like he has owned it his whole life. I don't know if he shoots often in real life, but he plays a believable character.

In the same underpass firefight, Spence is indiscriminently firing with an H&K MP5 PDW with a bottomless magazine:

The big gunfight is somewhere in the middle of the movie, and Sam starts it out by blowing up a car with a H&K 69 40mm grenade launcher:

He then lights up another car with his Sig SG551:

One bad guy - if he can be called that - is returning fire with a Scorpion SA Vz 61:

He quickly becomes merc fodder like all the others, except for these guys in the car; one of which is shooting an AK pistol:

This ambush triggers a great car chase, and Sam takes out a car with a M72 LAW from the sunroof of a speeding Mercedes:

When the chase comes to a crashing halt, he pulls out a Para M249 SAW and puts down a base of fire:

That's what I'm talkin about! In this scene he shoots up a car in an alleyway:

Then he takes cover behind the corner of a building and drops a few BGs with some defilade fire. You can see where the wall turns black from the muzzle blast:

Notice he has his knee against the wall for support. He would have more control over the weapon if he would extend the stock, plant the stock in his shoulder, and then shoot from a kneeling position. This is one of the better movie gunfights.

Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard) who plays one of the mercs chose to carry a Glock 34 for reasons unknown:

It worked fine for Denzel Washington in the movie Man on Fire, I just don't see why anyone would want to carry one.

Larry (Skipp Sudduth) has a short barreled Mossberg 500 that is never shown being fired:

A tactical/SWAT team of ninjas rolls up, and here they are with mismatched weapons:

After that big gun battle, the pace of the movie slows a bit to make room for a little acting. The WTF uber tactical award goes to Gregor, who wields this ridiculous looking Glock with some no-name red dot optic on top to shoot at a little girl:

It looks like he put all of that stuff on the Glock 34 he was carrying earlier. Somehow I always knew race guns were dangerous (sarcasm)!

About two thirds of the way into the movie, there is a scene where a sniper with an AR-15 of unknown make guns down an ice skater:

Several Sig P239's are shown or fired in this movie like this one in two tone:

And this one that Sam fires at Gregor in front of hundreds of onlookers:

Notice that DeNiro has a good firing grip, and is squinting but not flinching. Speaking of which, it seems to me that the terrible flinches in movies may be generated by the extreme muzzle blast and fireball projected by shooting blanks. Just a thought.

The last gun I will show is a Walther P5 that this BG indirectly shoots Sam with:

The hilarious part is that the round hits a concrete wall at around an 85 degree angle, from where the pistol is aimed in the picture, and then ricochets into Sam where it penetrates his kevlar vest. Later, when the bullet is removed from his abdomen, Sam says that the BG "sprayed his bullets with teflon." It's amazing that this Hollywood myth is still in circulation.

The myth is that teflon covered bullets can penetrate "bullet proof" vests because the teflon lubricates the shot hole as the bullet passes through. This is so ridiculous. To quote myself:

Teflon was initially used on hard bullets like bronze that wear out the rifle bore quickly. These hard bullets were coated with Teflon to prevent bore wear, and later they became popular because they prevented fouling in rifle bores that fired traditional copper bullets. Again, Teflon coating on bullets has nothing to do with penetration and is pretty much obsolete.

That's it for today. Tonight I will pick up a copy of The Outsiders to try and get some frames of the balisong that was used in the movie. I will try to get those into a post tomorrow.

Update: Anonymous points out in comments that Gregor's Glock is actually a 17L, and he has a good picture to show the difference. Good catch!